For a movie that involves trekking 2,000 miles across the
harsh Australian Outback, John Curran’s “Tracks” plays things surprisingly
safe. Based on a true story, the picture revolves around Robyn Davidson (Mia
Wasikowska), a young Australian gal who finds herself fed up with life in the
city and all the minute little problems that come with it. Most of all, she’s
fed up with people; so along with her loyal black Lab and three camels she sets
off on the barren, dangerous wilderness to find herself.
For being an inexperienced hiker, Robyn sure makes things
look easy. Most of the time she seems so relaxed, with a slight smile on her
face, looking like she’s in a state of Zen. While it’s great that she doesn’t
spend the movie freaking out or panicking, I feel like she’s too nonchalant
most of the time. Looking through my barely legible notes I took during my
screening, I noticed I wrote and underlined the phrase: ”Where’s the danger?”
Twice. Now, as I’m writing this review I’m still wondering, where’s the danger?
She gets a few sunburns, loses track of the camels for short
period and has a few hallucinations but other than that her journey is
relatively stress free. The only major dramatic thing that happens is she has
to put one of her fury companions down. I realize that this incident most
likely happened to the real Robyn but within a movie, the decision to kill off
an animal companion is a cheap manipulative way to draw an emotional reaction
out of the audience. And the fact that it’s the only thing we react emotionally to on screen during the movie makes
it feel even more cheap and manipulative. The movie doesn’t earn this sad
moment.
“Tracks” is beautifully photographed by Mandy Walker,
containing a lot of gorgeous wide shots of the sunbaked Australian desert. I
also learned some interesting facts about the continent; did you know that
Australia has the largest feral camel population? I didn’t. But overall the
movie is rather dull, when it should be gripping and exciting. Even worse,
because it’s not gripping or exciting it’s not inspirational. By the end of the
movie we’re supposed to feel happy that Robyn accomplished this major feat but
Curran doesn’t make that “feat” look all that impressive.
Worst of all, while the movie purports to be about one woman’s journey across the Outback
she keeps running into helpful people along the way. Specifically men. At one
point she’s lucky enough to have a native Aboriginal lead her through a section
of the way. We can’t just leave a woman alone in the wilderness, can we? Not
yet anyways. On paper, “Tracks” should have been great but in execution it
simply fails to be engrossing or inspirational.
C-
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